


the most dangerous game(s)

by Idestroyedtheworldoops



Series: the kanagawa twins [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: F/F, Gen, M/M, The Penumbra Express, crossing universes, fantasy xenophobia, not for long tho and nothing more serious than what Arum says in Moonlit Hermit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-27 18:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15691104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idestroyedtheworldoops/pseuds/Idestroyedtheworldoops
Summary: It's been too long since Cecil put on a show. After O'Flaherty's government shut down his family's business and drove them off of Mars he took to traipsing the edges of the galaxy with his boyfriend, but his heart and soul belong to the entertainment industry. Luckily, the network his boyfriend co-owns with his sister seems like the perfect solution for getting back in the game.All three of them are in for a surprise when they find themselves helping put on a show like theirs, in a world unlike anything they've ever seen before.Alternatively:Cecil Kanagawa decides to catch a train.





	the most dangerous game(s)

**Author's Note:**

> Look of the Second Citadel is based on the [Caves of Discord](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/thepenumbrapodcast/images/1/19/Tumblr_ooxsq8howR1vde6y5o1_1280.png/revision/latest?cb=20170428042727) poster.

“We haven’t been around to this part yet.”

Edward tapped a pink-gloved finger through a certain cluster of planets displayed on the holomap.

Cecil only hummed in response, his interest uncaught.

“A little close to the Solar, I might think,” Lydia chimed in, “Perhaps too much so for comfort.”

She stood behind Cecil and Edward where they were seated, leaning casually on her brother and viewing their map of the galaxy with as much lazy and frustrated indecision as either of them.

“We could always just go back to your planet for a while,” Cecil said, “I did enjoy the jungles, and I’m sure your audience misses you.”

Lydia giggled. “We taped enough of a backlog in advance to stay out for quite a while longer, dear, don’t worry about that.”

“Though it wouldn't hurt to save the rest for later,” Edward said.

“That’s true,” Lydia agreed, “It’s not a bad idea to get some fresh footage out.” She smiled at Cecil. “Perhaps you’d even agree to join us?”

“On our side of things, of course, not as a contestant,” Edward added hurriedly, nearly shuddering at the thought. He wrapped an arm around Cecil’s waist and pulled him closer. “I’m sure you’d have just invaluable ideas for running the game.”

Cecil smiled at the advance. He'd been itching to get back on the streams for months now, and though he'd prefer to be putting his own shows out on their network, guest starring on one of their shows in the meantime sounded absolutely delightful.

“Why, _of course_ I'd-”

Both twins frowned as Cecil cut off mid sentence. It took them a second to realize his gaze was caught on the window to their right, but upon following his gaze, they found themselves just as dumbfounded.

Cecil blinked, finally looking away from the window to meet the eyes of both of his companions. A silent agreement passed between them, and as soon as the boys stood the three of them started simultaneously for the door.

The sight was even greater in it’s full scape, beyond just what the window could show them. They kept walking long after the door had shut behind them, until they were almost close enough to touch it.

Framed against the backdrop of this planet’s craggy tan rocks and smoggy night sky was a long, silver train, built in that ancient style none of them had ever seen outside of period pieces and Y2K fairs. This, however, looked neither like a relic nor a cheap re-creation. The only proper way to describe the machine before them was positively _grand_.

“That… wasn’t there before,” Edward said, still a little in awe of the thing.

“These tracks weren’t here before, either,” Lydia said. The metal criss-crosses seemed to be made of the same shimmering silver substance as the train itself, which stood out spectacularly in the night but also had no possibility of lasting so much as an hour on this planet before someone came and tore it up for scrap. This planet was known for sleazy clubs and relatively disorganized organized crime, certainly not anything that would produce this seeming monument to the past. Where would a train like that even lead, on a planet like this? Who would bother to use it? And how exactly did it materialize 30 feet outside of their ship?

Before they had time to consider any of these questions, there was a noise entirely alien to all three of them as steam billowed out from underneath the thing and bars on the side began moving slowly, not yet moving the train itself forward.

At the same time as all of this, a door opened up in the train’s side, right in front of them.

“Should we…” Edward looked between his boyfriend and sister for some guidance on what to do with the situation. Cecil got his word in before Lydia did.

“ _Obviously_ ,” he said with delight, before grabbing his hand and jumping for the door.

The train had just started to really get moving, and though Lydia was able to hop on after them without event, the suddenly more rapid motion of the train made Edward slip.

Cecil and Lydia pulled him back into the car before he could get ground into the track, but it was a close one. He clung to Cecil and breathed heavily as the train moved faster and the wind beat harder at them. Lydia slammed her hand on the train’s ‘door close’ button so hard it seemed like she was trying to punish it.

She stepped closer to him and brushed away the pink hair that’d been blown out of his ponytail and into his face. “Are you alright, dearest?”

Edward nodded, still catching his breath. Cecil laughed, more softly than he normally did.

“That looked exhilarating,” he noted, and that broke the tension, Edward laughing along with him and Lydia releasing a long sigh.

Without the sound of the wind, it was easier to hear the soft music playing, old fashioned like the train itself.

“Ah, good evening travelers.”

They whipped their heads around to the head of the car. Standing there was a person dressed like an old-fashioned train conductor, his face obscured by this train’s dim lighting.

“Take your seats, please, take your seats,” he continued amicably. “The Penumbra Express is en route to stops beyond the hills of Nowhere, past the trails of travelers before, and toward the tales that lurk beyond. So take your seat, help yourself to a refreshment from our cart, and enjoy the ride.”

There was in fact of beverage cart, rolling slowly back and forth with the vibrations of the train. They looked at it, then at each other, then back at the Conductor.

“So, this is for… a show?” Cecil guessed. “A stunt? A kidnapping? Because if it’s the latter, I must say this is one of the classier ones-”

“Oh, never anything of the sort, dear… traveler,” the Conductor replied. For just a moment, Cecil could see his eyes, and he could have sworn he saw some recognition in them. He was a celebrity, so that wasn't a stretch, but something about this specific context unsettled him. He almost felt like he wasn't supposed to be there.

“If you’ve found yourself regretting your choice to travel with us, we can always stop to let you off,” the Conductor continued.

“Where is it we’re going, exactly?” Lydia asked.

“Our next stop?” He seemed to look at a sort of posting up behind him, but it was too hard to make out any detail. “Hm-hm, well. You’re in for quite a treat, Traveler. Our next stop: The Second Citadel.”

Before they could ask for further explanation, Edward placed a hand on both of their shoulders.

“It’s going outside the dome,”  he said.

It was true- the train was making its way rapidly towards the subtle blue forcefield. The second the engine hit it, the view from the outside went from blurry with speed to absolutely indiscernible.

They really should have taken their seats.

As it was, they all toppled onto one another as the train’s speed skyrocketed, and whether they really heard the Conductor chuckle at them they’d never be sure. The g-force of the thing glued them to the ground in the order they’d fallen, Lydia on top, Cecil in the middle, and Edward below them both. It was hard to do so much as think, much less move, until the train finally started to slow down.

Edward groaned, sitting up but not standing, and the other two rose.

“We are now passing through,” the Conductor stated, nonchalant as ever, “The Lake of Tranquility.”

“Sounds like a pleasant change of setting,” Lydia said, righting the last bit of her ensemble. Cecil was straightening his hair when he actually caught sight of what now lay beyond the train’s windows.

“Edward,” he started. When all he got was a grumpy _huff_ in reply, he took his arm and pulled him to his feet, soliciting a more surprised noise and then a pouting face that would have been adorable if he wasn’t so focused on what was outside. He turned his boyfriend’s face away from his own and towards the train’s old-fashioned windows. “Edward, the trees are _pink_.”

Edward’s eyes widened as his attention was turned to the windows. They heard a _gasp_ , and assumed his sister had done the same.

It wasn’t only the trees. The sky itself seemed to have enjoyed a color-shift, too, though to a much lighter shade than the foliage that they could see. There hadn’t even _been_ foliage where they’d been moments ago. Other things, certain animals flitting by, the terrain itself, seemed to have kept their usual tones, while more had undergone changes in everything from hue to size to number of limbs, and even more were unrecognizable altogether.

It was glorious.

All three of them had themselves created things alien to the natural world, done things that nature never would have intended in its dizziest daydreams or worst nightmares, but this place was beyond anything even they could ever have imagined. It couldn’t be real.

It wasn’t until the train slowly began rolling again that they realized it had been at a full stop. And as the train came to life once again, once again, a door slid open.

There would be no time to deliberate before the train was moving too fast to get off. And there was no way they were going to let this place pass them by. This time, they all held onto each other as they hopped through the door of the moving train.

It hadn’t picked up enough speed to do more than stumble them as they hit the ground with a _splash_. It was a good thing none of them had fallen, too, because they’d somehow found themselves ankle-deep in the swampy edge of the Lake of Tranquility.

“Oh, my _shoes_ ,” Edward whined, momentarily distracted. “How did they even manage to get a train so close to-”

He cut off as he finally noticed what his two companions already had.

When the Conductor had said they were passing through the Lake of Tranquility, he quite literally meant through it. Those shimmering silver tracks were built on the surface of the water, and were still holding the full weight of the train as it sped off into the distance.

And goodness, _what_ a distance.

No digital windows. No trick of the light. No virtual reality setup- Cecil was intimately familiar with those, and he knew all the tells. They were surrounded by a real-life jungle of dark pink vegetation, lying under a soft pink sky that reflected the expansive lake before them in the same color.

It was unquestionable they were on a different planet, somehow, but even accepting that fact, all of this was unlike anything they’d ever seen or even heard of before. The pink didn’t hold any blue tint; they weren’t under a dome, but they felt neither encroaching radiation nor crushing atmospheric pressure. This place felt just right, clean and natural in a way that was strange in and of itself.

The jungle around them was chock full of noise, nature sounds that fit this lake’s name. It was very atmospheric, until it was split through by the distinct sound of someone _wailing_.

The three of them looked at each other.

“Should we check that out, do you think?” Cecil asked.

“Someone could be getting hurt,” Edward said.

“Sounds fun,” he replied.  

“I think it sounds more mournful than imperiled,” Lydia observed. She had a lot of experience with the different ways that people sounded when they were suffering.

Cecil hummed in agreement. They all did. “Even if it’s nothing interesting, though, perhaps this someone could give us an idea of where we are?”

The twins both nodded. After an unpleasant few moments of getting themselves out of the lake muck and onto relatively dry ground, they began a leisurely pace towards the noise.

It became apparent that the wailing was at least two people as they got closer, and this was confirmed when they finally broke through the pink brush into a large clearing.

The place looked like a warzone. The clearing was coated in what were probably once very nice, intricate chalk lines, but half the grass had been reduced wholly to ash and scattered scorch marks didn’t leave the rest of it much better. Amidst the crumbled ruin of a tall wooden structure that looked just shy of having been bombed out was a layer of blackened, still-wove-together thorns, and lain over it, a dragonfly the size of a jetliner.

And at the center of it all were two women, kneeling on the ground, facing each other, and absolutely crying their eyes out.

“It looks like someone had an exciting day,” Lydia said in the women’s general direction.

The crying quieted at the sound of her voice, replaced by some sort of angry _buzz_.

The women looked up and there was something off about their faces, the shape of them, something Lydia was too far away to make out. They looked furious, though, that she could tell, their eyes first sliding over Cecil. When they noticed Lydia and Edward, though, Lydia in particular, the anger left them with a start, replaced by something more like... embarrassment.

“Oh, great,” the one on the right said, her voice still strained with the fact she had been crying a moment before and tinged with some sort of interference that muddied her _s_ es.  “Other monzters zzeeing us like thizz.”

Lydia and Edward blinked, glancing at each other and back at the women.

“Sorry?” Edward asked.

“What do you two _want_ ,” the one on the left asked without any interference at all, and also with a much higher lilt that reminded Lydia a little of her own. “Don’t you see we’re- we’re-”

She broke down crying again before she could finish.

“ _Other_ monsters?” Edward asked his sister.

“I mean, we aren’t entirely human, but…” Lydia trailed off, taking a few steps forward and scrutinizing the women further. There was something about their entire bodies that was shifting… maybe it was just their frames shaking with their sobs? No, no, she’d seen enough people break down crying to know that wasn’t it. 

 “C?” Edward asked over his shoulder. He’d followed Lydia as she walked forward, but just noticed that Cecil hadn’t come with them.

He was instead caught up in gazing at the ship-sized dragonfly carcass that lay on the other side of the clearing. It didn’t look like he’d even noticed their conversation with the strange crying women.

“Cecil?” Edward asked again, turning and walking back over to him. He gently took his right hand and tilted his head at him, and that finally got his attention.

Cecil looked between Edward and the insect a few times before sighing in wonderment.

“ _Wow_ ,” he said, his voice laced with awe, “ _Look_ at that thing, Eds! Who… what kind of marvel of genetic engineering….” He shook his head and grinned. “ _I’ve_ never even made anything that big!”

Edward grinned along with him, not at the bug but at Cecil’s excitement. He loved seeing him like this, so immersed in what he loved. He loved _him_ , everything about him, every moment he had the privilege of spending with him. He was usually squeamish around bugs, but he couldn’t be anything but glowing inside with that look on Cecil’s face.

“Misses?” Edward called to the still-crying women. “You wouldn’t happen to know where the big dragonfly came from, would you?”

Their faces shot up with twin looks of incredulity and indignation. Lydia cut in before they could respond-

“Not to be so insensitive of course, clearly it’s left you very distressed, knocking down your nice tower and all-”

She stopped as the woman on the right stood up, sputtering and looking flabbergasted.

“You- how do you two- not-” She stepped closer, and Lydia got a closer look at her body.

“You can’t be from anywhere around here if you’d make such awful assumptions about our- our _Damsel_ ,” the one still on the ground said, choking up again near the end before pulling herself back together. She rose with her friend and scrutinized Lydia and Edward. “What are you two? Fair Folk? Elves?”

Lydia and Edward exchanged another look with each other, while Cecil’s attention was finally pulled away from the bug and toward the women. He laughed loudly, getting their attention in turn in the form of harsh glares.

“Oh no, friends, don’t let them fool you with all of that,” Cecil gestured to several things on Lydia and Edward- their pointed ears, their naturally pastel hair, their cat-like golden eyes. He had always rolled his eyes at the fact they’d attempted to emulate old fantasy creatures when they’d designed their new bodies. “They’re just heavily modded.” He giggled a little more. “Magical creatures don’t really exist.”

The women’s face went slack. They blinked at him, looked at each other, then then broke into _raucous_ laughter.

And that wasn’t the only thing they broke into.

 _This_ was the shift Lydia had been noticing. They hadn’t just been moving, they’d been slowly breaking apart. Except now it wasn’t slow- it was all at once, and it was complete, and they were-

Before them were two distinct swarms of _bees_ , shaking and buzzing with laughter, no longer able to hold themselves together.

Cecil gasped but did not back away, standing stock-still and staring with wide eyes. Eventually the buzz-laughter died down, and the insects formed themselves back into ladies, much closer to Cecil than they’d been before.

“Wow,” the woman who’d been on the right continued chuckling as she clapped Cecil hard on the left shoulder with much more physical strength than you’d expect from her petite form- but wasn’t what they expected out the window right then? It was his metal shoulder, thankfully, but the touch still pushed him and he thought he was going to need to check for dents.

“You know that actually cheered me up, kid,” she continued.

“The way it sounded like you actually _believed_ it,” the other one said, giggling with her hand pressed over her mouth. “‘Magic isn’t real’...”

They both dissolved into laughter again, this time just barely keeping from dissolving in the literal sense.

“Well… I..” Cecil lingered on their bodies, parts of which were still made from writhing insects, for a moment longer, before finally looking the women in the eye and smiling. “Well, I do _so_ enjoy putting smiles on people’s faces, I’m... glad to have helped you ladies out of your slump!”

The ladies laughed again, quieter, intimidating, even. Their eyes were _hungry_ as they looked him over. 

“Yes, quite pleased,” Lydia started, and the women looked over their shoulders at her. “I do have have a few quick questions though, if you _don’t_ mind…?”

They shrugged and tilted their heads at her, both in perfect unison.

“Delightful! I’ll start us off, then; What are you, where are we, and as my brother inquired earlier-” she pointed to the large bug on the other side of the field- “Do you happen to know anything about that?”

The women lost their predatory edge for a moment as the dead bug was pointed out, but they collected themselves.

“Well, you really aren’t from around here!” The one who’d been on the left grinned at her. “I’m Sunny Budkin, this is my best pal Pitley, and we’re-” her smile wavered for a moment and it almost seemed like she would break down crying again before her smile came back full force, “The announcers for Sport!”

“As for where you are that'd be Nymph territory, right outside the Swamp of Titan’s Blooms,” The other one, Pitley, said, “And-”

They started buzzing again. “That-”

Pitley seemed like she was going to start coming apart again, but Sunny managed to make out, “ _Zygoptera phallophaga_ , the-” she was wavering on the edge of tears again, “The _Maneater Damsel_. _Our_ _Damsel_ who inspired our Sport and gave us a reason to _live_ ,” she started swarming, “And she’s _gone_! Gone forever because of those- thozze-”

She cut off.

Lydia, Edward and Cecil exchanged surprised, confused glances as they took in Sunny’s answer.

“You’re saying it’s… yours?” Edward asked.

“Of courzze it iz! Nymphzz have been watching over the Damzel zinzze the beginning, don’t you two know anything?” Pitley exclaimed.

Cecil grinned. They’d been reading the situation entirely wrong, and this made things so much better. They had assumed the women- bugs- ‘Nymphs’?- had been attacked by the bug and that that was their reason for sorrow, but _no_. It was like Lydia had thought originally. They weren’t fretting the Damselfly’s existence, they were _mourning_ it.

“Is it possible you could make another one?” he asked, excitement pushing him to get ahead of himself. The looks of bloody murder both Nymphs gave him were barely enough to damper it.

“ _No_ ,” Sunny said, “We were _robbed_ of our Chrysalis Cloth and even if we weren’t-” she choked- “The egg izz- _broken_. Thozze four _terrible boyz_ blew our Damsel into the podium and the wood splintered her up so badly, not to mention the explosion, and, and-” She gasped, trying to keep tears and disintegration at bay, “It’z broken! W-we won’t even get another Damzel in a thouzand yearz, the cycle of life almozt fifty thouzzand yearz zztrong iz _broken_! Those Four Terrible Boyz We Will Alwayz Hate didn’t juzt ruin Zport for now, they ruined Zzport _forever_!”

“‘Zport’?” Edward barely more than mouthed.

“The greatest game in the history of Nymph kind,”  Sunny went on, apparently having heard him, “Two randomized preliminary rounds followed by the ritual sacrifice of the losing competitors to the Damsel. The terrible boys were supposed to be playing but they _cheated_ and...”

“Oh, you just hate that,” Lydia said with genuine sympathy.

“Cheaters jumping in and ruining a game you worked so hard on…” Edward shook his head.

Cecil pressed his metal hand over his heart. “Self-righteous and _tasteless_ people somehow getting it into their heads that their own lives could be worth more than the enjoyment of _countless_ others,” Cecil said with disdain. He looked back over at the Damsel.

“An egg, hm?” Cecil said. Could they being implying that it was a _naturally_ _occurring_ …?

His eyes dragged over the bright magenta foliage around them. Maybe it wasn’t the biggest stretch.

“Well, friends, in my experience relying on natural reproduction for these things is a fool’s game anyways,” he continued. Seems on his metal arm began pulling out and away at the command of his brainwaves as he tried to find something.

The Nymphs, who’d been mostly swarms at that point, pulled themselves together and looked wide-eyed at Cecil’s arm as it expanded and rearranged itself seemingly out of nowhere.

“You wouldn’t believe the creatures I’ve lost trying to use them for incubation, or the specimens I’ve lost the other way around. I got sick of it years ago- it’s much better taking things,” he made a triumphant little noise as he found what he was looking for, “Into your own hands.”

The Nymphs exchanged a look with each other, then turned back to Cecil and looked at him with an interest different from the carnal one they'd had before.

“You’re a witch,” Pitley said plainly, as if that was the first thing she’d realized that day that made any sense.

Cecil had to stop himself from giggling out loud as the statement hit him.

“That explains. Some of this, at least,” she continued, her eyes jumping to Lydia and Edward and then back to Cecil. She narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean ‘specimens’, kid?”

“Oh!” He grinned. He put back the small device he’d gotten out, just for the moment, in favor of letting a personal-sized screen fold out of his arm and face Sunny and Pitley.

“My monsters,” he said, as the screen came to life and began flicking between good shots of his creations from his different streams.

Their eyes widened with some unreadable emotion as images flashed across the screen. He wondered merrily if they thought this was ‘magic’, too, but they didn't look as dazzled as he'd hoped.

Pitley looked halfway between sick and angry when she looked up at him. “The hell is a human doing using monsters-”

“Are those humans?”

They all looked over at Sunny, her eyes glued on the screen. She was watching a trio of young men get devoured on an old episode of Colosseum 2.

Pitley’s face went from angry to surprised. They both seemed enraptured, suddenly.

He smiled.

Pitley nodded slowly. “Only humans bleed like that, Sunny,” she said, not peeling her eyes off the screen.

Sunny looked up at him. “You create monsters… to kill other _humans_?” she asked.

“There's more to it than that, but yes, that is often a primary purpose,” he said pleasantly.

“Why?”

He blinked. Then he laughed.

“For entertainment, of course,” he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Here I was thinking you ladies might understand that.”

“Of course we do,” Sunny said quickly, “Watching humans die for Sport has been the Nymphs’ favorite pastime for thousands of years, but…" Her eyebrows scrunched together. " _You’re_ a human.”

He laughed. “I am. I am _also_ the highest grossing reality stream host in the last 553 years _and_ the world’s most gifted genetic engineer, and I am very personally invested in seeing your Damsel alive. So if you wouldn’t mind I would absolutely love the chance to clone a new one.”

“What?” They both looked more bewildered than anything. “You can’t make a new one. The egg-”

“It’s like I said,” Cecil cut in, “Relying on natural reproductive processes is for amateurs.” He pulled the small, disk shaped device back out. “If I were allowed to collect a somatic cell sample from the body over there, my device could flawlessly recreate an oocyte of the proper species and incubate the new creature in a way identical to its natural process- but who wants be identical to nature when you can improve upon it, hm?” He laughed to himself. “It can also speed up the production process, and combine different cells to control the emergence of traits and even hybridize species-”

“How much faster can it work?” Pitley cut him off in turn.

He pouted at being interrupted in the middle of his spiel. Edward wrapped a comforting arm around him, and that did make him feel a little better. He leaned his head onto his shoulder and didn't answer her.

“How much faster would you _need_ it to be?” Lydia asked for him, rolling her eyes.

“Natural process takes one thousand years.”

Cecil’s eyes went wide. He looked down at his mobile cloning device. He’d been so thankful to himself that he’d had the intuition to make his most valuable inventions small and portable, when he was forced to flee home. Not that the rest of the galaxy didn’t have cloning, that was an invention ages old and a staple of the modern meat industry, but no one besides himself had ever done it with his precision and attention to detail.

No one before him had been able to speed up reproductive processes either, and gene-splicing was a new and rare if not unique technology in itself. But even he…

“The fastest setting I have here runs 10 years for every hour,” he said. At the time of creation that’d seemed like a superfluous ratio, because what creation could ever take an entire decade to develop? It had guaranteed him any creature his mind could concoct delivered to him in under an hour, the grand majority of them in five minutes or so, but now… “That’ll be,” he frowned. He hated waiting. “A little more than four days.”

He looked back up from his device, and in a stark contrast to his disappointment, that specific number seemed to have sparked something in the Nymphs. They began buzzing again.

“You’re saying… you think you can use that thing to bring the Damsel back?” Pitley said, her eyes flitting from the still running footage of his other monsters back to his face.

“If I can get a sample, ye-”

“Do it, then! Go!” Sunny said urgently.

He laughed a little. “Of course,” he said. He gave his boyfriend a kiss on the cheek before eagerly making his way over to the corpse.

Pitley looked between Lydia and Edward once Cecil was out of earshot.

“So…” she said, “Are you two gonna eat him later, or…?”

"Not both of us," Edward said quickly, going rigid and glancing at Lydia. "It isn't a three way thing, we're twins, that'd be disgusting."

"Eds-" Lydia started, but Pitley talked over her.

"You are, though?" she asked.

Lydia pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Maybe, if we can find some privacy,” Edward finally said. “That’s a very specific question, though. Why do you ask?”

“Just making sure,” Pitley said.

“Could you wait until after he’s finished doing… whatever spell he’s going to cast over there?” Sunny asked. “If he really can bring our Damsel back we can’t allow him to die before then.”

“ _Die_?” Edward clapped a hand over his mouth. “You mean-” he stood there in disbelief for a moment.

“I’m not going to _kill_ him!” He finally continued, “I kill a lot of people, sure, but- so does he, and I would never hurt him,” he slumped his shoulders, “I _love_ him.”

“Huh?”

The Nymphs both looked more bewildered than they had when Cecil’d brought up cloning.

“Edward,” Lydia said quickly and levelly, “Why don’t you go help Cecil with whatever he’s doing over there while I clear some things up with our new acquaintances?”

He looked terribly upset, but after a moment decided he would rather be with Cecil right then. He turned briskly in his direction, sparing one still deeply offended look over his shoulder at the Nymphs.

"Apologies, ladies," Lydia gave them a tight smile. “My brother just happens to be _very_ smitten with that man over there, so I am going to have to  _insist_ that no harm comes to him."

Sunny and Pitley looked at each other.

“Genuinely?” Sunny said.

Lydia sighed and nodded, her stance impatient.

“So you have… no plans to kill him? At all?” Sunny asked.

“You’re just palling around with a human for the hell of it?” Pitley said, “I mean, witches are more respectable humans, embracing magic and rejecting human lifestyle and whatever, but they’re still _humans_.”

Lydia raised an eyebrow. “May I ask why that’s an issue for you ladies?”

They were both taken aback.

“Are you three from the East or something?” Pitley asked.

Lydia considered. “We came from what I believe was that direction,” she said, gesturing the way she thinks the train was heading on their way in.

The Nymphs squinted off into the distance. “That’s like… north… west?” Pitley said. She turned to Sunny. “Is there something in the Northwest now?”

Sunny just shrugged. “We’re already in the Northern Wilds, Pit.”

Pitley laughed and shook her head. “I don’t know what it’s like where you people come from, then, but around here there’s sort of an ages-old blood war going on between humans and monsters,” she said. “It’s pretty much always a kill-on-sight situation with us.” She paused, then smiled to herself. "Or kill after you've played with them a little. Always kill, though. Always."

Lydia pursed her lips. She almost wanted to pry for the specifics, but she didn’t want to look too much like she didn’t know what was going on and reveal the fact she legitimately didn’t. She thought absently that they were lucky the Nymphs assumed she and Edward were something other than people- things seemed like they would have gone bad fast if they'd seen all three of them as nothing but prey.

“Well, if you want your big bug back, you’re just going to have to stand him,” she said, turning her nose up a little.

“It isn't that we can’t _stand_ him,” Sunny said, “It’s just…”

The Nymphs looked at each other.

“To be fair,” Sunny said, “I’ve never seen a human show such genuine enthusiasm at the slaughter of his own kind for Sport,” she said, sounding impressed.

Pitley nodded. “Even witches never seem to go that far with it.”

They kept looking at each other, and seemed to reach the same conclusion as they did.

“And he’s just like this? The two of you didn’t charm him or anything?” Sunny asked.

Lydia shook her head, a new smile tugging at the corners of her lips at her wording.

“He’s just like this,” she confirmed.

Both Nymphs seemed to relax, and Pitley chuckled.

“A human having a role in Sport that’s _not_ being forced to fight for his life,” she sounded amused, “Zzz’Z’d be rolling in her billion tiny graves.”

“If some of the other monsters around here got wind we were sharing secrets…” Sunny started, then shook her head. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Let them _try_ to get between two thousand Nymphs and their Sport.”

“You two are going to be cool, then?” Lydia said.

Pitley snorted. Lydia raised an eyebrow, and she rolled her eyes.

“Yeah,” she ceded.

“Good," she said, “Because I am also very interested in getting to see how your game plays out.”

An excited squeal sounded from over where the boys were, and the three of them looked up.

Cecil was making his way back over to them, his device held gingerly ahead of him in both hands. Edward had his arm around him again, and looked a little protective. His eyes flicked from the Nymphs to meet the those of his sister. They could practically read each other's minds after so long, and he relaxed once he realized she felt the situation was handled.

“I’ve done it!” Cecil squealed again, holding the device aloft for all of them to see.

The disk was slowly growing into a more ovular shape. Cecil made what looked like some final adjustments to a few dials on the side, and the outside smoothed into a shiny, deep-red substance. If it weren’t for the remaining panel of functions, it would look just like an egg.

They heard distinct buzzing, and turned to look at the Nymphs.

“The… Damsel,” Sunny said, pressing down on the part of her chest where her heart would be if she wasn’t made of bugs. She sniffled, but it was easy to tell that these were tears of joy and relief. “I can _feel_ it. It’zzz…”

She reached out slowly as if to touch the device, then suddenly snatched it out of Cecil’s hands.

“Hey!” he said, putting his hand his hip and frowning at them, but not moving to snatch the device back.

The two women held the cloning-egg between them now, huddled together and whispering something in a grating, buzzing language none of them could understand. If Cecil had to guess, though, he’d say it almost sounded like prayer.

“Give that back,” he said, whining more than anything. He’d be more urgent if it looked like they were going to break it, but they were staring at it with such awe and gratitude that that seemed highly unlikely.

“I have to monitor the process constantly or it will fail,” he said more sternly.

The Nymphs started. Pitley nearly shoved the device back into his hands.

“Do whatever you’ve gotta, just- make it work,” she said with mild strain.

He held his invention up again. That had been a lie- though abnormalities he would need to deal with were a slim possibility, the device was capable of working on it’s own. 

He smoothed his metal thumb across the dark red synthshell, and imagined he could already see the monster growing inside. He grinned.

“Gladly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've scattered a lot of names and things from the patreon bonuses in here, I highly recommend going over there and pledging if you haven't already, there's the entire history of Sport and also a new Kanagawa one that's an email thread between all four of them from when Croesus was alive, it's Top Stuff.  
> This is not a fundraiser tho this is a highly self-indulgent thing about all my favorite ~~characters~~ villains becoming friends and putting on a great death game together. I have no idea if any of the later chapters are gonna be this long, nor exactly when they'll be posted. Hopefully soon! this is really fun to write.


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